life work

Two hour painting session at my life drawing class.

Celebrating a birthday

The birthday anniversary of this fine young man is today. And I remember his birth day very well and always.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true   
      Joy of the long dead child sang burning
                  In the sun.
           It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon   
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.   
          O may my heart’s truth
               Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

Dylan Thomas, “Poem in October” from The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Used by permission of David Higham Associates, London as agents for the Trustees of the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

Source: Poetry (February 1945).

Thanking God

for all our Blessings.

fading sunlight

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda

"Goldengrove unleaving"

Golden

Another one of my oil sketches from earlier this fall. And a poem which I love, and always comes to mind at this time of year.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

colors so bright

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills 
That silence cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
- Emily Dickinson
Is there such a thing in nature as colors that are too intense? As I go out on the Prairie Path with my dog for our daily run I find myself reacting to the fall colors with an emotional intensity. The Reds! and the Golds! and the nearly fluorescent Oranges! It almost hurts my eyes to look too long.
I am fortunate to live now in this Midwestern part of the country where the fall colors appear every year , always surprising and stunning.  The brilliance is so much so suddenly, and behind that the knowledge that soon everything will be a monochromatic winter gray. The colors make me want to weep with joy or sob with longing.
Painting above is from my outdoor "en plien air" trip with oils and easel earlier this fall.

close-up

today is the 125th birthday of Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keeffe was born on 15 November 1887 in a farmhouse near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. 

As you can see from this recent work of mine, I owe her a lot.

 

Some familiar quotes...

Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.

If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.

So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

...Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't.
Georgia O'Keeffe

Highlights Magazine and sitting an exam

Who does not love Highlights Magazine for Children? Who does not have memories of reading back issues in a doctor or dentist office while waiting for Mom or the siblings to come back? I still read the issues when I am waiting in the office wherever.

This post is in honor of one of my kids who is sitting the ACT college entrance exam this week, we are hoping for his great success!

 And I should mention that another one of my daughters willingly posed for this illustration, making lots of funny faces for me. This illustration appeared with a poem in Highlights Magazine. I used my colored pencil style on this one (and for the LadyBug art previously), sometimes I switch materials if the story seems better served by a softer touch.

halloween costume

 What happens when a treater tries to grab too much candy! The last trick-or-treater to knock on my door yesterday got tricked!
When my kids were younger I made many very original costumes for them. I used fabric, foam, and acrylic paint to make almost anything we could dream up. I refused to make any costume "evil" though, no vampires or movie murderers! We had butterflies, fairies, tigers, various dinosaurs or dragons, a pink flying horse, a 4 ft. tall wide-mouth bass, a golden eagle, Braveheart, a huge fantastical red bird with golden wings, a peacock, and more that I can't remember now, they were used over and over until they fell apart. This carnivorous dinosaur stands about 4 ft tall and is worn on top of one's shoulders making it perfect for skulking behind the front hedges. It is a bit heavy so needs a larger kid to wear it!
This is what happens to kids with an artist-Mom, and a studio room full of supplies. We had so much fun with these.  ( I had dreams of working someday for the Muppets.)